The Coming Rout

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There's a scenario that could play out between May and September in which commodities (including my beloved silver) and the stock and bond markets could all sell off between 20% and 40%. The trigger will be the cessation of QE II and a multi-month pause before QE III.

This is a reversal in my thinking from the outright inflationary 'buy with both hands' bent that I have held for the past two years. Even though it's quite a speculative analysis at this early stage, it is a possibility that we must consider.

Important note: This is a short-term scenario that stems from my trading days, so if you are a long-term holder of a core position in gold and silver, as am I, nothing has changed in my extended outlook for these metals. The fiscal and monetary path we are on has a very high likelihood of failure over the coming decade, and I see nothing that shakes that view.

But over the next 3-6 months, I have a few specific concerns.

It's time to build on the idea I planted in the Insider article entitled Blame the Victim (February 28, 2011) where I speculated on the idea that the Fed might be forced to end its quantitative easing programs, almost certainly because of behind-the-scenes pressure.

Here's what I said:

How I read [the Fed's recent propaganda tour] is that the Fed is taking some heat for its inflationary policies, mainly behind closed doors, and it is trying to do what it can -- with words -- to soothe the situation. Perhaps China is making noises, or perhaps Brazil's finance minister is making the phone lines feeding the Eccles building smoke ominously, or perhaps it is internal pressure coming from politicians with restless voters. Or all three.

The big risk here is that the Fed will be forced by this rising pressure to discontinue the QE program in June at the normal ending of the QE II efforts. Couple that with a possible federal showdown over the debt ceiling right at the same time, and you have the makings for a massive fireworks display, possibly involving derivative mortars bursting in air.

At the time, I speculated that all of the Fed's pronouncements about inflation being almost nonexistent were actually signs that the Fed was taking some behind-the-scenes heat for the inflation its policies was creating. And I worried about what would happen if the Fed were to end the QE program in June.

Let's just say it won't be pretty.

Everything would tank. Stocks, bonds, and commodities. All of the risk assets that have been unnaturally supported by a flood of liquidity, too-low interest rates, and thin-air base money would give up those ill-gotten gains. Gold might behave a bit differently, because along with these market declines will come an enormous amount of uncertainty about the financial system itself, usually a condition for higher gold prices. So I expect gold to correct somewhat, but not nearly as much as everything else, and it could even gain.

The story is, admittedly, getting more confusing by the week, with some calling for hyperinflation and some calling for massive, outright deflation. I am trying to surf the probabilities and stay one step ahead of whatever curve balls are coming our way.

The basic idea is this: The Fed has been dumping roughly $4 billion of thin-air money into the US markets each trading day since November 2010. The markets, all of them, are higher than they would be without this money. $4 billion per trading day is an enormous amount of money. It's gigantic by historical standards. As soon as the QE program ends, the markets will have to subsist on a lot less money and liquidity, and the result is almost perfectly predictable.

Hello, downdraft.

The markets are quite substantially elevated due to the efforts of the Fed. T, and then some, is quite likely to be rapidly eliminated as soon as the QE program has ended.

It's really that simple.

To make the story even more difficult to follow, the Fed has been sending out teams of PR agents in an effort to guide the markets with their words.

A surge in the prices of oil and other commodities probably won’t generate a lasting rise in inflation, Bernanke told lawmakers yesterday in semiannual testimony on monetary policy. A “sustained period of stronger job creation” is needed to ensure a solid recovery, and the Fed’s benchmark rate will stay low for an “extended period,” he said.

The "no rush to tighten credit" statement is a signal that the Fed will neither raise rates at the end of the QE program nor perform reverse POMOs where it reels cash back in and pushes MBS and/or Treasury paper back out.

Upon the cessation of the QE efforts, and the cessation of $4 billion a day in Treasury buying pressure, it's a safe bet that market interest rates will rise. Bernanke is at least on record as saying that if this happens, it won't be because the Fed has taken the lead.

Bernanke was being a little bit sloppy in his statements, because stopping QE will serve to tighten credit simply because there will be a lot less liquidity sloshing around the system. It's a situation where the absence of excess is the same as the presence of tightness, if that makes any sense.

Then on March 5th, a much stronger and clearer signal was given, confirming my worries:

Federal Reserve policy makers are signaling they favor an abrupt end to $600 billion in Treasury purchases in June, jettisoning their prior strategy of gradually pulling back on intervention in bond markets.

“I don’t see a lot of gain to reverting to a tapering approach,” Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart told reporters yesterday. “I don’t think that is necessary,” Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser said last month.

Whoa. This is important news. Not only a cessation of QE, but the possibility of a sudden stop is being telegraphed. This will change everything.

The old saying 'sell in May and go away' might never be truer than this year, although with this sort of a warning, the cautious investor may want to get a head start on things and sell in March or April.

For some time there have been rumors that the Fed has been splitting into factions, with some of the inner team becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the QE program and its effects. But so far they've either spoken in code to reveal their displeasure or quietly resigned. So we're pretty sure there's an admirable level of support within the Fed for ending QE, and it has now bubbled to the surface and reached the public arena.

Of course, there's some form of gobbledy-gook reasoning being floated to justify the plan for a sudden stop rather than a gentle wind-down, and it involves the distinction between 'stocks and flows' (from the same article as above):

Fed staff members, such as Brian Sack, the New York Fed official in charge of carrying out the bond buying, have argued the total amount, or stock, of securities the Fed has announced it will make has more impact on longer-term interest rates than the timing of those purchases. That’s a view now held by several members on the Federal Open Market Committee, including the chairman.

“We learned in the first quarter of last year, when we ended our previous program, that the markets had anticipated that adequately, and we didn’t see any major impact on interest rates,” Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee during his March 1 semiannual monetary-policy testimony. “It’s really the total amount of holdings, rather than the flow of new purchases, that affects the level of interest rates.”

Fed Vice Chairman Janet Yellen supported that perspective, saying at a monetary policy forum in New York last week that “the stock view won out over the flow view.”

The idea that Brian Sack, a 40-year-old economist with a PhD from MIT, is winning the day in the argument of "stocks over flows" is somewhat troubling to me. MIT is a quantitative shop, home to some very brilliant people, but how markets will actually respond is another specialty altogether, one that requires a bit of on-the-street experience. Markets have a bad habit of not being logical, not fitting neatly into tidy formulas, and ignoring things like 'stocks and flows.'

I'll go even further. I'll take the other side of that bet and opine that the flows are much more important than the stocks, because it is the flows that support the continued budget deficits of the US government — which, it should be noted, will still be with us each and every month long after June 2011. Those deficits are baked into the cake and will require in excess of $125 billion in new Treasury sales each and every month.

Who will buy all the Treasury bonds after the Fed steps aside? That is unclear. If there are not enough buyers at these artificially inflated prices, then the price will have to fall until sufficient buyers can be found. Falling bond prices are at the other side of the financial see-saw from rising bond yields; one goes down while the other goes up, and the Fed has been pressing firmly down on yields for a while via the QE II program. When that's over, pressure will be reduced and yields will rise.

So what to do? For those concerned enough about this possible scenario to consider taking action, please see Part II of this article (free executive summary; paid enrollment required to access). In it, I predict the extent to which stocks, commodities, Treasury bonds and precious metals prices may be impacted in the near term. I also detail the key indicators to look out for in order to determine if and when this scenario is unfolding - as well as recommended strategies to preserve capital during this corrective phase.

I understand your thoughts on a SELLOFF in MAY-SEPT if Ben Printing Press Bernanke doesn't continue right into QE3, but if you think everything will selloff 20-40% including stocks and bonds....there where on earth is the money going to flow? If you are right and investors sell Stocks....they normally go into bonds, US Treasuries. If they sell Bonds-Treasuries....they go into Stocks. If all else fails they go into gold and silver.

I realize you state that gold might actually go up., but just think about the amount of FUNDS coming out of stocks and bonds. They have to go somewhere don't they? Who on earth is going to take CASH or Federal Reserves notes?

My take is this is all happening at a time when there is hardly any physical silver at these prices available in the market. I don't see the silver manipulation lasting another 3 months before the Fan hits the Sheet. Of course this is my opinion....but I think things get exponentailly worse before summer hits and even if we do get a selloff in the broader markets......the money has to flow somewhere.

In that vein....I believe it will continue to go into both GOLD and SILVER.

Yes, there are headwinds to any possibility of a QE3 (plus the notion flies in the face of the "recovery"). I do remember last Spring when the Fed was telegraphing the end of QE1 and markets reacted; by the summer we were hearing QE2. So, I suppose we could get a repeat although I don't know how they will spin it. But, as a casual observer of how the Fed operates and their bottomless bag of tricks - I wonder if they won't just come up with some stealthy mechanism to keep the thin air money flowing that isn't QE. I have no idea what that could be since I am only a casual observer but what I do know is the Fed has what appears to be an unlimited arsenal (although surely one day the arsenal will be depleted) and they are likely to keep the game going as long as they can do so despite the headwinds from foreign central banks or others. It must, of course, end someday but I don't understand how the Fed can just stop the music and let the chips fall. So, I wonder if any of you who understand monetary policy would speculate that the Fed can create another mechanism to keep the money flowing - whatever that would be.....

The case has been made here several times that the big banks have been shorting, or betting against gold and silver. We also know that, the banks have been using their ZERO percent interest free money, courtesy of the Fed, to drive up the prices of equities and bonds, and not gold and silver. So, if the Fed pulls the liquidity plug, why would gold and silver plummet along with equities? After all, the banks weren't the ones doing the buying in the first place. I could, could, see a pullback in the metals with margin calls coming in, and investors who profited on gold and silver are forced to liquidate their positions to pay the margin calls. Just my .02

There are often useful/thoughtful nuggets in the ZH comments, but there is also a lot of noise -- trolls, smartasses, people in need of attention, and people posting things that are in no way germaine to the topic at hand. There are also a lot of dogmatic true believers -- people who will never change their tune no matter how compelling the evidence against their position -- people with a totally closed mind.

ZH is a great place to keep track of market news and relevant political developments. But their community hasn't a patch on what we've got going on around here.

I think plenty of people could liquidate their market positions (to a greater or lesser extent), convert to cash (possibly cash in a number of different currencies, parked in various accounts [for big money/sophisticated investors]) and sit on the sidelines while the fireworks go up. In a deflationary environment, while most or all asset classes are falling, then you're doing great if you're just sitting on your pile of cash.

Then, after the smoke clears, jump back in (to whatever asset class[es] you might find compelling).

Questions:1. It was my understanding that the Fed essentially had to print, and the suggestion that it was a decision was a ploy to hide the fact that they could not afford to make the interest payments on their debt otherwise. That situation certainly hasn't changed. Perhaps they really don't intend to stop printing, as is it not true that more debt is being sold than necessary to meet obligations? This is all very confusing, but I would like to see some numbers on what happens when QE pauses and interest rates take off. I would think they would be merely exchanging problems, the new one no better than the old. 2. It's been my assumption that some of the printed money was being used to buy stocks and not just be given to banks, and if so, exactly where are all these purchased assets shown on the government financial records? Once of my concerns has been that if it continued long enough, the government would have accumulated significant positions in many companies, and if the currency collapsed, they would basically have paid nothing for these assets! If we're going to accept that QE has been buying equities, where are they disclosed? The registrar for the stock now lists the government as the owner?

Trying to figure out what's going on in Bernanke's mind is a fool's game. It's like trying to have a debate with a schizophrenic.

I think the specific events this next year in regards to QE3 or no QE3 is irrelevant. If there's no QE3, then there's a rapid massive deflationary collapse. The government has unloaded almost all of the toxic assets from the banks over to the Fed's balance sheets. I think I read that 97% of mortgages are now backed by the government. The banks have been aggressively pumped full of money. I'm sure that the big banks will be given the warning early when the Fed decides to pull the plug on the stock market allowing the banks to get out early. When the collapse happens the banking system will be solidified to withstand the shock, inflation gets snuffed out, and money flows into UST's. Many people think this type of deflationary collapse would be similar to the 1931. The big difference is that the U.S. was a creditor nation then, and now it's the greatest debtor nation in the history of the world. USD's are backed by three things. 1) debt that will default, 2) faith, 3) the military industrial complex. Unlike 1931, in a deflationary collapse now the USD will weaken, not strengthen. It would outright collapse if it wasn't for the military. If there's no QE3, the U.S. will default. All currencies from defaulting countries are mightily devalued.

If there's QE3, QE4, etc., then it's more of the same & the I suspect it will be an external event, or other countries that bring on collapse of the U.S. economy.

So either way, QE3 or no QE3, the U.S. Ponzi economy will come crashing down, and the USD will tank. Anyone invested in the U.S. economy is a complete fool. The best people can do is to own silver, gold, possibly currencies from the strongest economies (Canada, Asian countries, Norway, etc), oil, PM mining stocks, and possibly some high dividend paying equites diversified throughout the world.

The last thing people should be doing is trying to time this market & catch the deflationary & inflationary waves just right jumping between the two. Have your portfolio lined up now for the way you expect to see the world in 5+ years, and don't waiver from your core beliefs if the fundamental reasons for the beliefs have not changed.

The last thing people should be doing is trying to time this market & catch the deflationary & inflationary waves just right jumping between the two. Have your portfolio lined up now for the way you expect to see the world in 5+ years, and don't waiver from your core beliefs if the fundamental reasons for the beliefs have not changed.

.................... 1) debt that will default, 2) faith, 3) the military industrial complex. Unlike 1931, in a deflationary collapse now the USD will weaken, not strengthen. It would outright collapse if it wasn't for the military.

I don't disagree with anything in your post, but I don't understand the above portion. Are you asserting that the militery is buttressing the dollar through force or threat of force by coercing international players (nations) to support the dollar? The only way this could be done is to hold a gun to their heads, figuratively speaking. Am I understanding this correctly?

Big thumbs up on this article for the willingness to look at both deflation AND inflation side of the argument. I have been struggling to understand both sides.

Maybe this is too simplistic but it seems there are two opposing forces at work: the high prices of NEEDs are increasing flow of money while the lower prices of WANTs are decreasing the flow of money.

Everything that we NEED food, fuel, heat, electricity and medical care going to the moon - FAST. I dont see that changing with QE3 or No-QE3.

Everything that we WANT higher wages, cars, land, houses, boats, airplanes and furniture going to rock bottom - maybe not as FAST but I think QE1/2 has buoyed this for awhile. I dont see this changing with QE3 or No-QE3.

Frankly, why stocks/bonds havent tanked already is beyond me so I dont care about them. They can go up or down - it is all a rigged game - so who gives a rip?

Being heavy in PMs, what I do care about is the effect of inflation/deflation on commodities. Commodities are real tangible wealth. We still need most of them. We cant do without food or energy to get the food to fill our bellies. There are shortages of commodities across the board.

So, why would commodities prices dive with No-QE3? Deflationist strategy is to dump everything of value now and hold cash then buy wealth on the dip. However, before you get that done, you may end up with a mattress full of green paper as the dollar is losing trust as a currency and is well on its way to being dropped in favor of something else - probably gold/silver backed.

Another thing I ponder is that every central bank in the world wants inflation. Are they going to sack their bats, go home and let the deflation team win? Nay I say - They wont let that happen. There is still some fleecing to be done - if they do, it will be to buy up commodities on the dip - build wealth on the way up and when there is blood in the streets, scavenging the corpses.

When the dollar was depreciating from QE, money went into emerging markets, Bill Gross said. So now its the US dollar that will strengthen, hence that fluid money that went into emerging markets will flow back here. So although the US stock market and bonds will have a decline the emerging markets would have even more, IMO. China stocks are expected to correct , too. A correction seems reasonable.

QE3, QE4, QE... is not an option, it is a necessity. The Fed/Gov will do it, but they may play games first along the way. I think they want to drive the PM's down badly. When QE2 ends, they may come out with a 'tough it out' stance and say - that's it, no QE3. That may indeed put pressure on PM's, but it is by no means clear it would actually drive values down or by how much. There's too many buyers waiting in the wings to buy dips. If the economy tanks, then weeks or months later they will do QE3 having the excuse that the economy then clearly needs it.

One of the things I look at is what's happened before. In 2008 we had the meltdown. Initially PM's went down for a couple months, but by the end of the year Gold was up by 15% even though the economy was totally dead. This time it could be even stronger. We could see QE initially terminated but yet PM's keep going up. There's a lot of people buying PM's around the world now, and I'm not sure they are going to stop just because the US does QE3 or not. Generally PM's go up when there is chaos, and if they hold back on QE3 it could create far more chaos and PM's could easily keep marching higher.

The only real thing I can imagine dropping PM values is the gov actually making serious cuts in spending. Given the stupid fight they are having now over cutting even $50B on a $1.7T deficit, it's a total joke. Not only that, we have another election at our doorstep. Can you imagine a politician running saying they wanted to cut SS, fire massive gov workers, cut defense, etc. Not a chance. It will be spend, spend, spend.

QEinfinity is what's coming. It's the only way they can keep the gov and bankers in power, and they will hang on to that to their last dying breath. QE is now about keeping the UST auctions from failing. With no QE, interest rates go up. Real estate really goes into the trash, and the gov interest on the debt goes way up. That is exactly what they are fighting desperately hard to prevent. QE3 will happen. Where else is the gov going to get all the Trillions it needs to keep it's checks from bouncing.

But making time line predictions is impossible. Too many unknown variables. More countries could have revolutions, other countries in the EU like Ireland could go the default route, Japan could blow up, or China and other countries could band together and force a new reserve currency onto the world very quickly. In just the last week China said it was going to make the RMB fully convertible by the end of 2011.

I think we are quickly approaching the End Game. Whether the blow up comes in 6 months or 6 years, no one can say, because it depends heavily on the actions of others. Everything is now totally unpredictable and volatile. For me I will keep adding to my PMs because when the storm hits, I think that will be the safest ship in the harbor. Thousands of years of history is hard to ignore.

I saw a happy-face article go by the other day saying that the retail stock buyers are -finally- coming back into the market. To me this means that the bag-holders are returning to hold the bag so to speak. Interestingly, the Big Kahuna of cycles is predicting a cycle shift in June...

There have been quite a few good charts making the rounds over the past couple of weeks with respect to oil spikes. They all seem to have a pretty common theme. When oil spikes, like it recently has, a recession almost invariably follows. While this is interesting from an economical perspective, what does an oil spike mean for

From 1920 to 1970 oil did not really have any rallies that were too epic.

From July 1973 to November 1975, oil prices skyrocketed 322%. It was both the longest spike time-wise and had the highest percentage gain. Stocks experienced a 48% bear market from January 1973 to October 1974. Commodities peaked in July 1974 and then went into a 23% bear market that bottomed in February 1975. Commodities would not go above their August 1974 high until late 1978.

Oil spent 1976 to 1978 in a consolidation pattern (up less than 1% cumulatively in those three years) before embarking into a final blow-off top phase. From December 1978 to February 1981, oil went up 161%. Stocks peaked on November 1980 and had a 28% bear market that bottomed on August 1982. While commodities peaked in the same month, they fared much worse. Commodities went down 45% in a 21-year bear market that finally ended in November 2001.

Next up is the famed Gulf War spike. Oil went up 235% in two years and five days and peaked October 10, 1990. This is similar to our current spike. Stocks went down 20.3% from July 16, 1990, to October 11, 1990. What about commodities? They peaked on May 1, 1990, and experienced a 2.4-year 19.3% leg down in their two-decade bear market to a temporary October 1992 bottom. Overall commodities would fall 26% to their bear market bottom.

The next oil spike was a 265% move from December 21, 1998, to September 20, 2000. You guessed it. Stocks didn’t care much for this oil spike either. The S&P went down 50% from March 24, 2000, to its October 10, 2000 low. Commodities went down 22% from October 12, 2000, to put in their final bear market intraday low on November 7, 2001.

Thus far this is a nice, clean article. But now things get messy. What exactly is a spike? Oil had strong and steady bull market action from the post 9/11 bottom to the middle of 2006. Whenever oil would start to get too spiky it quickly pulled back. The first time oil had a decent-size pullback for any real length of time was from July 14, 2006, to January 18, 2007, when it went down 35%. Overall from November 2001 to July 2006, oil went up 355% in 4.65 years. Very nice indeed. Is this a spike? Hmm. We will put this one on ice for a bit and come back to it in a minute.

From January 18, 2007, to July 11, 2008, oil went up 195%. Stocks went down 57% from October 11, 2007, to the March 6, 2009 low. Commodities went down 47% from July 2, 2008, to December 5, 2008.

From December 19, 2008, to March 7, 2011, oil has gone up 230% in about 2.21 years. We don’t know how this one is going to end.Now let’s go back to that pesky 2001-2006 oil rally that was mentioned before.

Oil went up 355% in 4.65 years. But was it a spike? What we are going to do here is take a look once again at the very same six spikes listed above. The first percentage number is how much that oil spike went up in the amount of years listed at the end of the line. The number in parentheses is the maximum the November 2001 to July 2006 oil rally went up in the same number of years.

July 1973 to November 1975: 322% (+160%) return in 2.33 years

December 1978 to February 1981: 161% (+142%) return in 2.17 years

October 1988 to October 1990: 235% (+152%) return in 2.01 years

December 1998 to September 2000: 265% (+138%) return in 1.72 years

January 2007 to July 2008: 195% (+121%) return in 1.48 years

December 2008 to March 2011: 223% (+141%) return in 2.2 years

Just to make this clear, let’s do the first one slowly. Oil went up 322% from July 1973 to November 1975. This was a time period of 2.33 years. The most that oil went up in any rolling 2.33-year period from November 2001 to July 2006 was 160%.

If you look, there was only one time out of the six oil spikes where the 2001-2006 oil bull market got anywhere near being classified as a spike. That was when oil went up 142% in 2.17 years. However, this did not reach the 161% rally leading up to the 1981 top. Therefore, according to this analysis, oil did not have a true spike in 2001-2006. The annualized return for the 2001-2006 oil rally was 38%. For the true oil spikes the annualized returns were 85%, 55%, 82%, 109%, 107%, and at least 71% for the present spike.

So what's the bottom line? In the five prior oil spikes, stocks started a bear market at least three months before the spike hit its peak. If the current oil spike reaches into early May it would be the longest oil spike.

In all five prior oil spikes commodities experienced a bear market. All prior commodity bears started within 22 calendar days of the end of the oil spike at the latest. This corresponds with my previous article, which suggested we should see at least a 36% commodity bear market commence sometime in 2011.

On a final note, some people are saying they will start to worry when oil hits $147. However, when the stock market hit its all-time high on Oct 11, 2007, oil closed at $83.08. If you adjust that for inflation it comes out to $87.56. The stock market hit its recent multi-year high on Feb 18, 2011. On that day, oil closed at $86.20.

Pimco has dumped all of its US Treasury bond exposure in its flagship Total Return Fund.

The move makes sense given Pimco chief Bill Gross's public statements that Treasurys are over-valued.

"It just gives people that follow him the bias not to bullish on the Treasury market," said Jefferies Treasury Strategist John Spinello. "He thinks rates are going higher."

In fact, there was little reaction in the bond market when news of move leaked out Wednesday morning.

"The Treasury market typifies perhaps the most overvalued area of the bond market," Gross said on Yahoo's Tech Ticker. The move would underline Gross's expectation is that there will not be a third round of US monetary easing. enormous downward pressure on the price of government bonds.

Gross has explained that he thinks the end of quantitative easing would punch a huge hold in the market for US debt.

"Basically, the recent game plan is as simple as the Ohio State Buckeyes’ “three yards and a cloud of dust” in the 1960s. When applied to the Treasury market it translates to this: The Treasury issues bonds and the Fed buys them. What could be simpler, and who’s to worry? This Sammy Scheme as I’ve described it in recent Outlooks is as foolproof as Ponzi and Madoff until… until… well, until it isn’t.

Gross went on to telegraph Pimco's exit: "Bond yields and stock prices are resting on an artificial foundation of QE II credit that may or may not lead to a successful private market handoff and stability in currency and financial markets. 15% gratuities may lie ahead, but more than likely there is a negative two-bit or even eight-bit tip lying on the investment table. Like I did 45 years ago, PIMCO’s not sticking around to see the waitress’s reaction."

According to Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge, the sell-off took place in January 2011.

The fund has fled to cash: Its cash position has jumped to a staggering $54.5 billion, up from $11.9 billion—a leap of over 350 percent, according to Durden.

Durden reports: "This is the most cash the flagship fund has ever held, and the lowest amount in Treasury holdings since January 2009 before it was made clear that the Fed was going to adjust QE1 to include Treasurys in addition to Mortgage Backed Securities."

"And if Bill Gross, the most connected person to the upcoming actions by the Fed, believes there is no more quantitative easing, it is really time to get the hell out of dodge in all security classes—bonds, and most certainly, equities," Durden writes.

There's a competing point of view on this that should be noted. Some wonder if Gross doesn't have the effect of the end of quantitative easing wrong. Joe Weisenthal at BusinessInsider has argued that one of the motives and effects of QE has been to push investors into riskier asset classes. The end of QE could result in a flight to safety, pushing bond yields down. In short, it could create more buyers for Treasuries—even while removing the Fed.

QE3, QE4, QE... is not an option, it is a necessity. The Fed/Gov will do it, but they may play games first along the way. I think they want to drive the PM's down badly. When QE2 ends, they may come out with a 'tough it out' stance and say - that's it, no QE3. That may indeed put pressure on PM's, but it is by no means clear it would actually drive values down or by how much. There's too many buyers waiting in the wings to buy dips. If the economy tanks, then weeks or months later they will do QE3 having the excuse that the economy then clearly needs it.

One of the things I look at is what's happened before. In 2008 we had the meltdown. Initially PM's went down for a couple months, but by the end of the year Gold was up by 15% even though the economy was totally dead. This time it could be even stronger. We could see QE initially terminated but yet PM's keep going up. There's a lot of people buying PM's around the world now, and I'm not sure they are going to stop just because the US does QE3 or not. Generally PM's go up when there is chaos, and if they hold back on QE3 it could create far more chaos and PM's could easily keep marching higher.

The only real thing I can imagine dropping PM values is the gov actually making serious cuts in spending. Given the stupid fight they are having now over cutting even $50B on a $1.7T deficit, it's a total joke. Not only that, we have another election at our doorstep. Can you imagine a politician running saying they wanted to cut SS, fire massive gov workers, cut defense, etc. Not a chance. It will be spend, spend, spend.

QEinfinity is what's coming. It's the only way they can keep the gov and bankers in power, and they will hang on to that to their last dying breath. QE is now about keeping the UST auctions from failing. With no QE, interest rates go up. Real estate really goes into the trash, and the gov interest on the debt goes way up. That is exactly what they are fighting desperately hard to prevent. QE3 will happen. Where else is the gov going to get all the Trillions it needs to keep it's checks from bouncing.

But making time line predictions is impossible. Too many unknown variables. More countries could have revolutions, other countries in the EU like Ireland could go the default route, Japan could blow up, or China and other countries could band together and force a new reserve currency onto the world very quickly. In just the last week China said it was going to make the RMB fully convertible by the end of 2011.

I think we are quickly approaching the End Game. Whether the blow up comes in 6 months or 6 years, no one can say, because it depends heavily on the actions of others. Everything is now totally unpredictable and volatile. For me I will keep adding to my PMs because when the storm hits, I think that will be the safest ship in the harbor. Thousands of years of history is hard to ignore.

+1

Couldn't have said it better. Without putting all three components of the budget in play for cuts, then it's game on as usual. That game requires more dollars. Printing is required, the name is irrelevant.

Inflation at THIS POINT in time is the only way out. They will not stop printing for any real period of time. They may stop for a short time, but there will be an event not related to the economy that will give them the okay to start pumping money again. No way in hell will I ever go to cash in this enviroment. Hold shares on companies that are involved in energy and materials and the miners or lose it all.

This is a very compelling report. The only piece missing is motive. Why would the Fed do this? Who does it benefit?

Wouldn’t the ensuing chaos and carnage at the end of QE2 lead to the realisation of acceptance by the politicians that QE3, QE4, QE5............ are essential? It strikes me that the Republicans are making more and more noise about budget reduction (albeit token efforts). Essentially, the politicians and public would be shut up

This is a very compelling report. The only piece missing is motive. Why would the Fed do this? Who does it benefit?

Wouldn’t the ensuing chaos and carnage at the end of QE2 lead to the realisation of acceptance by the politicians that QE3, QE4, QE5............ are essential? It strikes me that the Republicans are making more and more noise about budget reduction (albeit token efforts). Essentially, the politicians and public would be shut up

That's what I see as most probable at this point.... the Fed expects chaos to affect the economy (maybe even from things unrelated to expected cessation of QE, like oil shocks or a European sovereign debt meltdown), and therefore expects to have a better justification for continued QE before the planned end of QE2. And if nothing disastrous happens before the end of QE2 and they do turn off the money spigot, I think they will expect signs of an economic rout to follow and have their QE3 contingency plan waiting in their back pocket and ready to go at a moment's notice. So perhaps the idea is to 'go one step back to go two steps forward', and hold off on the QE just long enough to put fear in everyone's hearts and make a token showing of monetary restraint for the bondholders, at which point the sense of emergency (partially) eclipses the fear of QE effects and the Fed and government announces an ambitious program of QE3 and new stimulus projects. They get to kick the can down the road a little longer, the status quo is kept afloat at least a little longer (bondholders stay in the game a little longer because they're more afraid of abrupt meltdown than the QE), and the Fed and our elected officials get to play the hero in 'saving the system from collapse'.

Of course this will probably just push us towards a bigger more abrupt collapse in the future, but I think they're primarily concerned with buying time. And if they have any doubts, they'll probably delude themselves into thinking that any such problems can be handled too. When they find out they can't and it all falls down around them, they will claim it was a perfect storm of events nobody could have foreseen or prevented. Some people might actually buy it. And those don't lie convincingly enough and get voted out or kicked out will go on to write crappy books on how the whole mess was 'all that guy's or the (insert political party or elected officials) fault!' in an attempt to cash in on the shattered remains of their careers and soothe their bruised egos and tarnished images.

I've been in diversified cash for more than a year. I was anti-cash going into 2008. I was all set up for inflation. I had silver and oil and was leveraged too - why not when you know that cash will lose its purchasing power. We all know how well that plan worked. It turns out that there's no straight line from here to the end game. Cash is my new friend.

This piece had the chilling ring of truth when I read it. Seems like it's coming to pass as we speak. Good call. Last year, IIRC, the sell-in-May crowd mostly unloaded in April. This year it may be March. That being said, while I've liquidated my trading positions, my core holdings in physical PMs will remain unchanged. We've gone this route before. Weak hands will get shaken out, strong hands will hang in there. Keep up the great work!

Given today's events and the need to rebuild Japan and some of the other Pacific countries, how likely is it that the Fed will step in to boost liquidity and keep things rolling along? Is this a game changer for the time being?

Given today's events and the need to rebuild Japan and some of the other Pacific countries, how likely is it that the Fed will step in to boost liquidity and keep things rolling along? Is this a game changer for the time being?

How likely is a rescue operation today? Very.

If you look at past disasters, wars, 9/11, etc., the pattern is clear; what should be market destructive events turn out to be quite the opposite, and the explanation is that such events turn out to be excellent excuses to dump more money/liquidity into the system.

While Bernanke, et al., hardly need more encouragement for such behavior, serious events provide the perfect excuse for them to do the thing they know how to do best - print.

Given today's events and the need to rebuild Japan and some of the other Pacific countries, how likely is it that the Fed will step in to boost liquidity and keep things rolling along? Is this a game changer for the time being?

How likely is a rescue operation today? Very.

If you look at past disasters, wars, 9/11, etc., the pattern is clear; what should be market destructive events turn out to be quite the opposite, and the explanation is that such events turn out to be excellent excuses to dump more money/liquidity into the system.

While Bernanke, et al., hardly need more encouragement for such behavior, serious events provide the perfect excuse for them to do the thing they know how to do best - print.

Chris

Thanks for the confirmation. With some of the goings on in Europe as well today (Merkel vs. Ireland, proposal for Eurobond etc) things sure are interesting!!

Please do not forget about the upcomming Presidential Race! These Federal Reserve agendas are all so important to consider how thier sencerio is going to be played out. There is a script that we do not know that has been written by the Worlds elitists for thier New World Order. Consider oil at $200.00 per barrel and a new war. They can make anything happen at any time because they fund it all.

This administration was payed for by Goldman and the gang. They could discontinue QEII in June to bring the economy down to bring in the next puppet President that can read the teleprompters and lie honorably. Will it be Obama again or thier Republican Puppet man Romney. Either way they will get thier way. This is so easy to see......

March 11 (King World News) - As a child, I was confused by shouts of “The King is dead, long live the King!” I understood the declaration about the deceased king but didn’t understand why you would then wish long life to a dead King. Only later did I come to understand the distinction between the King who had just passed and the heir who had just ascended to the throne. Then it all made sense.

As we approach the end of the Fed’s quantitative easing program many are prepared to shout, “QE is dead!” Few realize the old royal salute is more appropriate – “QE is dead, long live QE!” Because an heir to the throne is here and will be with us for a long time. QE has now become a permanent part of the financial landscape of the United States.

The reason is that the size of the Fed’s balance sheet is now so vast that the reinvestment of principal payments from the existing assets will be enough to monetize a large portion of the Federal deficit without having to increase the total size of the balance sheet. The Fed’s balance sheet is to the bond market as Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan was to society – a monarch beyond the capacity of its subjects to change. Apart from the obfuscation of words like “stocks and flows” coming from Brian Sack at the New York Fed and Ben Bernanke, there’s nothing hidden going on, it’s just a matter of math. The key fact is that while the Fed will not expand the balance sheet, they will not let it shrink either. Keeping the balance sheet unchanged means reinvesting the entire maturing principal on the existing assets. And when the assets are big enough, that reinvestment becomes enormous. This is what is behind the talk of “stocks and flows.” When the stock is large enough, it is the flow.

The Fed said last November that QE2 would last until June 30, 2011 but reserved the right to “adjust the program as needed” in light of “incoming information.” So they have laid a foundation to continue QE2 if they wish. The negative impact of rising oil prices on the economy might give the FOMC a reason to continue QE2. However, there is not much time to decide. There are only three FOMC meetings before the end of June. These are March 15th, April 26th and June 21st. The Fed might make a formal announcement on June 21st, however, they will want to make a firm decision and leak it sooner in order to guide the market in advance and avoid surprise. Recall that when QE2 was decided the Fed made a formal announcement in November but began leaking their intentions in August, three months earlier. So it seems likely the Fed will reach a tentative decision on March 15th, begin leaking the announcement immediately and confirm this with a formal announcement in June.

The criticism of QE2 has been intense from Republican circles, Tea Party adherents and international trading partners such as China, South Korea, Brazil and others who are suffering the effects of inflation caused by QE generally. The Fed may have pushed this program to the limit. For political reasons, more so than economic, the Fed will end QE2 in June and will make its intentions known. But is this the end of QE? The answer is no.

Recall that QE2 was not really $600 billion but was $900 billion if you add the $300 billion of reinvested principal payments on the original $1.5 trillion of mortgage-backed securities from QE. Since this $300 billion of principal paid out in a seven-month period from November 2010 to June 2011, it’s reasonable to assign a principal payment run rate of $500 billion per year for the next two years on that portion of the Fed’s portfolio. Treasury securities are different because they don’t amortize the same way mortgages do, but the Fed still has about $1.3 trillion of Treasury notes and bonds on its balance sheet today and will likely have $300 billion more by the end of June as a result of new purchases under QE2. So, $1.6 Trillion seems like a reasonable estimate of the amount of Treasury notes and bonds the Fed will own on June 30, 2011.

It is difficult to know the exact maturity structure of all of the notes and bonds on the Fed’s balance sheet, however, the New York Fed has been transparent about the composition of the $600 billion of purchases under QE2. These have been made in all maturities from 2 years to 30 years, however, the purchases are concentrated in the 2-to-10 year sector with a weighted average maturity of about 6 years. Assuming the Fed’s entire portfolio has the same weighted average maturity, this means that approximately $250 billion of securities mature each year. Combining the $500 billion annual principal payments on QE mortgage backed securities with $250 billion of maturing principal payments on the remainder of the Fed’s portfolio gives the Fed about $750 billion per year of buying power without expanding the balance sheet.

The projected U.S. deficit for fiscal 2011 is $1.645 trillion. This will be funded by new issuance of Treasury securities over and above the amount needed to refinance maturing debt plus interest payments on existing debt. About 60% of outstanding Treasury issuance is in the 2-to-10 year maturity range. If we assign the 60% weight to the $1.645 trillion of new debt, we get $987 billion of new 2-to-10 year maturity Treasury notes issued in fiscal 2011 to finance the deficit. Therefore, the Fed’s buying power of $750 billion per year can monetize over 75% of the new 2-to10 year note issuance needed to fund ongoing U.S. budget deficits for the next two years without expanding the balance sheet.

The Fed is now like a 400-pound man who can eat 5,000 calories per day without gaining weight because his morbidly obese metabolism requires it to function. The discussion of QE, QE2 and QE3 has become irrelevant. What we have is permanent QE until such time as the Fed decides to tighten financial conditions. This is unlikely to happen until mid-2012 at the earliest, perhaps later in view of the housing double-dip and increasing oil prices. In any case, QE will be with us for an “extended period” no matter what the Fed announces.

I appreciate the ideas and insights here and agree with many. After reading Chris' thoughtfully wary QE scenario I came across ideas from Jim Rickards posted on the King World News Blog. www.kingworldnews.com

Rickards "runs the numbers" and concludes, plausibly in my opinion, that the Fed buying power ($750 billion/yr) "can monetize over 75 percent of the new 2-10 year note issuance needed to fund ongoing U.S. budget deficits for the next two years without expanding the balance sheet."

Rickards concludes that QE will effectively appear to end and the Fed will announce the end, but QE will continue to occur through monetization.

The ZH community is as sophisticated and as viable as anywhere; but it does have a broader audience, therefore more trolls; it comes with having more visitors. ZH is also far superior as far as content to here, and they dont try to get subscriptions or money from people...

So what do you disagree with? That wasn't a very constructive comment.

johndaniels wrote:

The ZH community is as sophisticated and as viable as anywhere; but it does have a broader audience, therefore more trolls; it comes with having more visitors. ZH is also far superior as far as content to here, and they dont try to get subscriptions or money from people...

And what did you hope to accomplish with this comment? I assume you notice many of Chris's articles get published at Zero Hedge as well? So since you consider it far superior, why are you here making "troll" like comments?

Don't get me wrong, your entitled to your opinion, but many will call you out for making comments of little value, particularly things like "Disagree" with no supporting argument.

So what do you disagree with? That wasn't a very constructive comment.

johndaniels wrote:

The ZH community is as sophisticated and as viable as anywhere; but it does have a broader audience, therefore more trolls; it comes with having more visitors. ZH is also far superior as far as content to here, and they dont try to get subscriptions or money from people...

And what did you hope to accomplish with this comment? I assume you notice many of Chris's articles get published at Zero Hedge as well? So since you consider it far superior, why are you here making "troll" like comments?

Don't get me wrong, your entitled to your opinion, but many will call you out for making comments of little value, particularly things like "Disagree" with no supporting argument.